The Hound From The North - Ridgwell Cullum

The quiet, dreamy face of the old school-mistress smiled over at the happy mother.

“Say?” she exclaimed. “I’m going to give George a piece of my mind for staying away so long. I know why he’s doing so, and my belief as to the cause of his absence is different from what Prudence is beginning to imagine. She thinks he has left her because of her brother’s doings, and it’s that that’s driving her to an early grave. I shall certainly tell George what I think.” And Sarah wagged her head sagely.

And she was as good as her word. She had not seen fit to tell Alice that she had been in constant communication with George Iredale ever since the day of the tragedy, or that she was in his confidence as regarded Prudence. George had left the district to give both Prudence and her mother time to recover from the shock. And now that a year or more had passed away, he had written appealing to Sarah to tell him if she thought the time auspicious for his return.

In a long, carefully-worded letter Sarah advised him not to delay.

“By dint of much perseverance,” she wrote, “I have persuaded the child out of her absurd notions about the reflections her brother’s doings have cast upon her. She looks at things from a healthier standpoint now. Why should she not marry? What has she done to debar her from fulfilling the mission which is appointed for every woman? Nothing! And I 344 am sure if a certain man should return and renew the appeal which he made at the time when the Lord’s anger was visited upon her brother, she would give him a different reply. However, I must not waste all my space upon the silly notions of a child with a misdirected conscience.”

And how her letter bore fruit, and how George Iredale returned and sought Prudence in the midst of the distractions of Winnipeg’s social whirl, and how the girl’s answer, when again he appealed to her, turned out to be the one Sarah had prophesied for him, were matters of great satisfaction to the sage old school-mistress.

She assisted at the wedding which followed, she saw the bride and bridegroom off at the railway depôt, she remained to console her old friend for the loss of her daughter. Then she hied her off once more, back to the bleak, staring school-house, where she continued to propound sage maxims for the young of the district until her allotted task was done, and the tally of her years complete.

THE END